The challenge of promoting creativity in Hong Kong early childhood context

The promotion of creativity has come to be seen as a vital component in the development of a knowledge-based globalised society, and Hong Kong, like other countries around the world, has been responding to this challenge through a raft of educational policy reforms. However, despite the last ten years of policy reforms aimed at encouraging creativity, traditional teacher-centred didactic practices still dominate. This chapter will argue that before creativity can be promoted, it is essential to understand teachers' beliefs in relation to creativity and then to establish whether these beliefs are actualized in practice. Drawing on research that was undertaken within a number of Hong Kong early childhood settings, this chapter will exemplify how it became possible to utilize a Western-orientated pedagogical framework for creative practice (PFCP). Using examples of illustrative data, the chapter will draw out the complexities that surround the interrelationship between teachers' beliefs and practice whilst also foregrounding the necessity for the development of culturally and contextually appropriate pedagogies. The chapter suggests that because creative practice is complex, changing, and developmental, more effort is needed in searching for culturally and contextually appropriate pedagogies. This may involve some fusion of Chinese and Western creative pedagogies. Copyright © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Kerry J. Kennedy and John Chi-Kin Lee; individual chapters, the contributors.